Not many people are designing video games for MS-DOS these days, but that didn't stop Vblank Entertainment's Brian Provinciano from taking on the task.
As he told Gamasutra last year, Provinciano's efforts to port his game Retro City Rampage to MS-DOS was the result of five years of burning ambition.
At GDC 2016, Provinciano elaborated on exactly how he did it, and in the process shed light on how he reduced memory usage down to 4MB, increased performance to run on a 486 PC, reduced disk space to fit on a single 1.44MB floppy, and finally ported the game to MS-DOS itself.
It was a fascinating and technical look at a topic that's very rarely talked about these days, so even if you caught it the first time it's well worth going back to watch it again (or for the first time!) for free via the official GDC YouTube channel.
About the GDC Vault
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
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